SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Target 16.1: Significantly reduce all forms of violence everywhere.

Target 16.7: Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making at all levels.

Project Description:

The project aims at enhancing individual and community peace and promoting national cohesion among diverse groups. Our organization envisions resilient societies where individuals achieve self-actualization in a safe and non-violent environment. Our peacebuilding strategies include awareness creation, sensitization, lobbying, and advocacy. Our peace education interventions aim at conflict prevention and transformation using Nonviolent Communication Skills (NVC) and Alternative to Violence Program (AVP) approaches.

NVC is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg. It focuses on three aspects of communication: self-empathy, empathy, and honest self-expression. AVP is a training program enabling participants to deal with potentially violent situations in new and creative ways. The workshop events emphasize the experiences that participants bring into the room, building confidence that everyone contributes something of value to violence prevention.

Project Activities:

. Peace advocacy walks: organized in conflict-prone areas to promote peaceful co-existence.
. Peace advocacy forums: convened at community level for peace actors and competing interest groups.
. Peace advocacy media campaigns: we use digital platforms to create awareness on peace and conflict issues.
. NVC Trainings: we conduct individual training and sets up practice groups at the club level to improve compassionate connections.
. AVP Training: we use interactive exercises to examine the ways we respond to situations where injustice, prejudice, frustration, and anger can lead to aggression and violence.
. EAC Youth Exchange Forum: organized annually as a cultural learning journey to in another country.

Key Achievements:

. We coordinate the largest peace club network in higher learning institutions in Kenya.
. We run the model community policing initiative in Kenya.
. We have organized nine national peace advocacy walks generating over 500 public peace forums in 32 Counties in Kenya.
. Our annual campus peace forums have increased cooperation between students, administrators, and police officers.
. Violent conflicts have reduced by over 50% in institutions we ran peace clubs.
. Over 1,000 volunteers have undergone basic NVC skills training.
. 50 youth volunteers have undertaken the AVP Training of Trainers course.
. We have organized five EAC exchange forums for 300 youths to Kigali, Kampala, Arusha, Dar es Salam since 2014.
. Our peace project emerged 1st Runners Up in Amani Festival 2017 Awards, Finalist in CSOs Peace Award 2017 & 2018, and Finalist DIAR 2019 Awards.